State of the Freezer Address - 17th Anniversary Edition

How in the world am I still hanging around the internet blogosphere after all these years? OCD? Not knowing when to let things go? Nerdy love of cataloging things? All of the above?!

The current state of the freezers is: upstairs boring, downstairs chaotic/full. Despite my best efforts, I continue to buy more ice cream than I can consume (at my age anyway). I think I still love ice cream, and I was excited at how the year started, but I'm losing momentum again already.

The upstairs freezer (aka the fridge in the kitchen, circa May 2025)

The upstairs freezer is probably uninspiring. We spend a fair amount of time with basic mainstream offerings these days. Tillamook is my go-to, but my wife is still sticking with fruity options from Turkey Hill and Friendly's. I know, it's boring, but that's what it is. Also, I can't believe I'm still consistently buying Tillamook's delicious apple crisp flavor. I was sure this would have disappeared months ago but I still saw it just this morning. That bettergood salted caramel has been in the freezer forever now.... oh, if you are wondering, putting a plastic bag on your ice cream lids means you can save them without having to clean ice cream and whatnot off of them. I now have four plastic bread containers full of saved lids.

Downstairs is just full, and every time I make a bit of space, something comes out of something goes on sale and I fill it right back up again. You would think having all this ice cream would make me happy, but it's partially stressful too. Hmmm, maybe we should stop for a couple of reality checks.

Whatever age you think I was when I started, I am 17 years older than that now. I was already married and was a dad before this blog started, so yeah, I'm pretty well in to life at this point, and what that means is that age is finally catching up to me. I cant eat ice cream three times a day anymore (though occasionally I do still get the urge). I really do need to be thinking about saturated fat and overall calories and all that jazz. Yes, I fully understand that there is a balance between exercise and calories and everything, you've heard me say or infer that many times, but that doesn't mean that at some point things slow down for me just like they do for everyone else. I just don't move as much as I used to, and that means less ability to burn off all the ice cream. On top of that, for some time now, I've been trying to mask the fact that I just can't eat chocolate the way I used to. I still love chocolate, but it doesn't love me anymore. So if it seems like I cover less chocolate items, that's why. Mint is kind of risky too.

What this means is that I cover less ice cream, I have to be selective with chocolate things, plus I still work from home which means no ability to try nutty flavors (our house is nut free), and well, you get what you get and you don't get upset (ha, sorry, a line from when the kids were little).

Back in the day, is was just new new new, scoop scoop scoop, buy more things. These days, I do honestly sometimes go "do I want this so-so looking new product, or would I rather just buy another container of Tillamook Apple Crisp?" All too often the Apple Crisp wins. This doesn't really help, but I did splurge the other day when Baskin-Robbins at Home was on sale and I stocked up on Cookie Monster (which is delicious if you havent tried it yet).

Anyway, here's the downstairs freezer. There is another layer of stuff on the left, but I think you get the idea. I'm guessing the FatBoy pop caught your attention first... unless maybe the pie caught your eye first. I do have the final Talenti bakery collection flavor waiting for review, some good pop stuff, etc, but I also have things that have been tried but not finished. The goal is to get this cleaned up over the next several weeks, but we know how that goes... but, seriously, I need to get this whittled down a bit because this freezer hasnt been defrosted in ages and it could use that before summer strikes.

So, I am still here, still buying things, and still reviewing things. The once a week thing is working fairly well, but I still need a better system. I really need to write the review while I'm eating the product since waiting several hours to write the review just doesn't really work anymore. In the old days, I would go to work, come home, spend time with the kids, put them to bed, and then work on the blog. These days, it's work from home and then walk away from my desk most nights. That's just not conducive to blogging. That's my problem to figure out though.

I guess let's end with a question, or maybe two questions. One, how are you feeling about 2025 now that we've settled in to the new ice cream season? Two, are you ok with how things are rolling right now? Part of me misses having a side kick, but at this point, I can just roll on my own. 

Later!

Foot note: I did some cleanup after posting this and realized that I have 14 products that need reviews... I'm gonna need to do more than one review a week to catch up!